I know, I promised no more talk about robots

"Bringing good teachers to places where good teachers won't go". - Sugata Mitra

Doesn't this sound eerily familiar?  As in, like, Teach For America eerily familiar?  Now, granted, in his TED Talk video Mr. Mitra is speaking of literally bringing educators to the back streets of New Delhi, but the overarching implications for those of us in the educator world is the same. 

I'm all for rapidly bringing teachers into areas where there is a shortage.  My concern is the same one I have with TFA.  How long before the teacher streamed by video into classrooms is seen as a viable alternative to the current educators already in place? In areas in which there is an excess of teachers? 

Computers are cheaper than health benefits.  Computer unions never demand a cost of living pay increase.  Sure, once Skynet comes online the computers will try to kill and enslave us (Google it), but until then streaming an educator into classrooms does have a nice ring to it as the potential solution to our country's education budget crisis.

Mitra does makes some good points.  Technology has empowered our kids to do some amazing learning.  I agree wholeheartedly that "if children have interest, then education happens"; but telling me that "children will learn to do things on computers on their own"?  Well.....duh.

With all due respect Mr. Mitra, there's a reason I go to my 16 and 10 year old nephews for tech advice: kids know things about computers because they play with them.  They tinker with a reckless abandon that only comes with being born into the digital age.  They don't fear them like the rest of us (which is also exactly why we will resist our new computer overlords while they will bow down to them).

This technology could change the world.  Let's just hope it is not at the expense of giving our kids a living, breathing teacher in the room.  There is more to life than learning how to use the interwebs and translate a google doc.  There is a subtlety and nuance to being alive that kids learn through mentorship and interaction with other human beings.  Life is best learned from the living.

Otherwise you get this for your parent teacher conference...

P C & A 2.0 coming soon!

It would seem I have matured some since I began this blog oh so very long ago.  Gone are the days of school girl crushes and robotic dinosaurs bringing peace to the land.  Sure, we will all long for those halcyon days of the past, but now it is time to move on.  We have important work to do as educators!

Soon there will be new and exciting postings to exceed, or at the very least match, the shiny new look of the blog.  Don't fret, I will always be prone to whimsy and random flights of fancy.  However now that I am actually getting to try my hand at teaching, I have heavy, meaty things to discuss.

Stay tuned.

Food, I wish I could quit you

*Food Journal Reflection*

For my Health and Fitness course this quarter we kept to keep a food/ activity journal.  I had never done this before and was not entirely sure how it would go.  I am fully aware that I do not have the best dietary habits and have not been nearly as physically active as I used to be.  It’s been a project of mine to slowly get those two elements to a point where I want them to be before I go into the classroom this autumn. 

Overall I learned that my eating habits, while not good, are not nearly as bad as I thought they would be.  I definitely need to eat more vegetables, but I eat more fruit than I thought, so my number of servings per day in that category is not as deficient as I had assumed. 

Even with the use of the campus gym, my activity level is lower than I would like.  My exercise time often gets hijacked by the need to read for class, and when that is finally done each day, it is late and I need to get to bed. 

I think I am fairly realistic model for my future students; not all of my habits are perfect, but I have identified some areas to work on and am striving to make those healthy changes.  It lets them know that no matter what their starting point, they can set some goals and work to better their habits and gain and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Speaking of goals, after the first week I noticed I had eaten very little in the way of fruits or veggies.  I decided to try to change that for week two.  I started bringing fruit for snacks before and during class, and tried to do some increased cooking for dinner using the vegetables ripening in our garden.  It really just ended up being me eating a lot of carrots and kale, but I suppose it still counts.  My biggest obstacle was on the supply side.  I am pretty lazy about shopping and will just eat what I have on hand.  For me this is a bigger habit that needs changing than the actual diet; making sure to keep the elements of a healthy diet around. 

I set a simple and attainable goal for myself; one that I felt I could reasonably reach.  Kids need to know that it is okay to not always start out reaching for the sky when it comes to goals.  Start small, win big.

Even if there was not time to teach health, kids could still keep a food journal on their own.  It is an easy way to get more understanding of what they eat and could motivate them to pay more attention to food labels.  That new interest in food labels could be turned into studies of percentages and/ or what certain chemicals do in the body, possibly leading to letters to grocery store about the dangers of their deceptive product placement, etc.

Coincidentally appropriate

Today was one of those rare days in which our reading material was illustrated for us first hand.  One of our sources discussed the negative effects that stress has on the brain and our abilities to learn.  Our "break" today left me extremely stressed and tense, and I truly was unable to focus-in and pay much attention during our afternoon class; it was hampering my desire to learn.

Looky there, living proof that not feeling comfortable and being stressed can affect your student's ability to learn and desire to participate in class.

Like the scrambled up brain-science reading example said:  "it's amaznig!"

Ladies, all the ladies, louder now, help me out

Things I learned in class today, part 7: Sex Education

Apparently, "circumcised" and "of a certain size" sound very similar.  Also, the musical stylings of George Michael and Salt 'n' Pepa (google it) did not prepare me to teach sex education nearly as much as I thought they did.

Mostly I learned that even current teachers who's lesson plans are light years ahead of mine still search for a way to make them better, a way to find that missing piece that allows their material to click in with the kids.  For me it was not only reassuring, but inspiring.  I felt very fortunate to get to see an in-service k-8 educator plying his trade right in front of my eyes, going through the same thought processes to develop a lesson plan that we did, and kind enough to narrate them for us as he went.

It raised questions for me about teaching style, teaching methods, and how to deal with your objectives and the state standards.  Our instructors give us the raw basics and most of the tools, but we never really know how to use them.  That is why I thought seeing an educator put them to use and grapple with things first hand was so cool.

Yuck! (tm)

Oh, dear me.  My son is very adventurous, and he has a new found love for candy.  Relevance? you ask. Well, he enjoys pulling over a stool or chair to climb up on to the kitchen counter and get into the cupboards where his new favorite treat resides.  I have requested that he not do this, alas he is a free spirit and cannot be contained!  Actually, he is a very stable climber, so it's not the counter that makes me worry.  It is that he could certainly do this in the bathroom cabinets as well, where the medicines are.

Another thing about my son; he has been taking medication since he was born, so pills are normalcy to him.  They don't scare him in the least, he takes them with relish (no, not literally the condiment, he doesn't seem to like the taste- which is strange because he loves pickles).  I am pretty sure that I have instilled in him the belief that medicines should only be dispersed by his mother or me, yet he is only 2 1/2 years old and precocious; therefore not to be trusted. 

Again, relevance.  Hold on, I'm getting there.  So our segment today on the Yuck! Box makes me very nervous.  Those pills and candies look waaaaaaay too much alike.  Not that it would matter to my child, who has no aversion to pills.  It is a great eye opener to me that I need to invest some free time (I know, what's that? AmIright?) in Yuck!ing up my house.  Honestly though, I think the super-sweet rave-green Mr. Yuck! stickers would only encourage him to be deviant.  What's a father to do?

I think the Yuck! Box is a great teaching tool for both parents and educators.  Both to alert kids to be careful because medicines are increasingly looking like candy, and to show the deceptive advertising and packaging used by manufacturers (very similar to the cereal aisle).  "Buy our drugs, they're just like candy!"  Our little activity in class today really got me thinking about this.

Mr. Yuck! isn't totally to keep the kids away from stuff.  It also helps serve as a reminder to us parents, or anyone with a vested interest in the safety of children, to not become complacent.

Just do it

I tend to waffle when I am not sure what to do.  It's a failing of mine.  I am sure there are many people out there who are the same.  There is a compulsion I have to sure of a decision before I make it, know all of the details before I act.

My wife works with assault and abuse victims of a regular basis.  Knowing what she does about me, one of the first things she did once I was accepted into this teaching program was to explain to me my future obligations as a mandatory reporter.  The basic gist of it was that it was not my job to gather all the facts- there are people paid to do that- it was my job to report if I had any suspicions at all.  Sure, it may turn out to be awkward, but better to err on the side of caution.  Me feeling silly is a far, far better result than a child being harmed.

So Thursdays presentation on Abuse and reporting was, for better or worse, information I was already privy to.  That being said, it is extremely important stuff to know.  I tend to take a moral and ethic stance when it comes to education, and the problems of abuse run counter to my ideals of community and people having respect for, and being good to one another.

I think we have all learned that it is our duty to report if we have doubts in any situation.  We should all prefer that we potentially experience some awkward moments as opposed to any child being mistreated.